i was thinking the other day about how certain things have influence in my life.  particularly the influence of culture from movies and tv shows into my own speech and personality.  for example, while watching rounders last night there is a line about someone being a “judas.”  whenever i hear someone called a judas, i instantly picture harvey keitel from the last temptation of christ.

later in the movie when malkovitch is portraying teddy kgb (a part of the movie so completely full of classic one liners that it itself is probably worth an entire blog post) i started to think about the infusion of “catch phrases” or movie line quotes into everyday speech.  seinfeld is a particularly good example.  there are many lines from that show that i say daily without really realizing that i’m quoting the show.  some phrases, like  “not that there’s anything wrong with that” are probably forgotten to even be from that show by a lot of people.  someday that phrase may still be popular, and people will not remember the show it came from.

i think the phenomena of quoting lines from movies back and forth is a way that people  show a shared culture.  in this country we don’t have a uniform set of religious experiences, cultural traits, or art.  what we have is a shared culture of media.  i think most people in this country have seen at least one movie in their lives.  letting other people know you’ve seen a movie is a good way to set some common ground between you.   i think it helps to create a bond between individuals and generate a sense of shared experiences and culture.

it can still be pretty annoying to witness sometimes though…